I’m still hacking away at the never-ending series of Necropolis quests — and the tombs that accompany each one. I started off with Tomb of the Forbidden, which actually turned into a terrific romp. Oh, I wasn’t too pleased at the difficulties of getting hirelings to cooperate to help open doors (it’s A Thing with this quest), but past that, it’s a well-designed instance that has a great theme (bones and ice), new types of ice skeleton mobs that I’ve never seen before, and a flow that’s low on the frustration level. I even got me a teal ring that seriously boosted my open locks skill. It really does pay to have a good lockpicking set in this game.

And even better, this mission pushed me over the edge to level 14! It was just a week or so ago that I hit 13, so I guess I’ve been raking in the XP without realizing it.

Despite being labeled as a long dungeon, Tomb of the Sanguine Heart proved to be a remarkably breezy run. Just a few hallways, killing random mobs, disarming a handful of traps, then fighting the end boss. Easy peasy. It’s nice to get one of these every so often, and now especially as I’m itching to move on from Necropolis.

Tomb of the Bloody Crypt is a big capstone to these Necropolis dungeons and one that I remember from waaaaay back when. It’s a “very long” quest, a note that always makes my stomach sink. But it’s also CR6, so I just took it on normal and absolutely blitzed my way through. I don’t think I stopped at any point or stopped shooting, just ran and pew-pewed my way through the four long paths, unlocked the center door, and took down a very bewildered priest who was shocked at a sprinting, shooting, spitting Gnome.

Am I seriously not done with these Necropolis quests yet? Guess not! Next up was Tomb of the Shadow Lord, and egads, this one took the better part of an evening because I missed a couple of torches and had to backtrack through endlessly respawning areas to find them. Thematically, this dungeon was well-done — all gothic and shadowy and whatnot — but the luster of that wore off about an hour into this slog and left me antsy to finish. Which I did, because I’m awesome like that.

The final Necropolis quest in my log, Tomb of the Tormented, was the one that ended up breaking me. I’m serious. It’s the kind of quest that makes you wonder if a developer was actively feeding his or her sadistic nature by designing.

To get to this tomb’s signature mummy (it’s always a mummy in the Necropolis), you have to clear three rooms out and then guide a rat underneath a grate from point to point to the exit. By stuffing rotten bits of zombie flesh down there, but let’s move past that part here. The first maze isn’t too hard, while the second one introduces moving doors and pressure plates. That was doable, if a little long. But the third… the third is horrid. It has traps for the rat and multiple doors and timing issues. I got so far into it when my rat got skewered, and I just flung my hands up and declared that Fun Was Not Being Had and recalled out of there. I haven’t been giving up on DDO quests, but this one is a real eyesore and far too annoying to complete. So I shall just live with that black mark on my quest log.

If you can’t open a lock in DDO with your character’s Open Lock skill, you can also use a Bell of Opening from the DDO Store. Bells of Opening are cheap, you can buy them in bulk, and they work on most doors and chests. https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Bell_of_Opening